My take on the U.S. election this week.

“To all the women…who put their faith in this campaign and in me…nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion.” —Hillary

It was Germaine Greer who asked us what is so special about Hillary Clinton. Well I can answer that. Hillary Clinton has wanted to be president of the United States more than any other human in the history of the world and she has done everything in her power to achieve that aim. She has used every tactic, she has changed outdated approaches, she made sure she had and displayed all the requisite skills. Within her field, when she was told little girls can do anything, she decided “Well, I will do the hardest thing” and she made every effort possible toward that success. She compromised, she endured the unprecedented taunts and ridicule of men (in and out of the press) and she faced public humiliation from her stupid reckless husband.

She displayed a level of long term focus the world has rarely seen. Even if you hate Hillary, you must give her that. Donald Trump said it himself. I happen to believe, if she was allowed to preside, she would have done what she had always covertly threatened to do – turn the electoral focus on a fair start for all children, make advances for women in health care, and turn the nation toward local economies. You may disagree. What you cannot disagree with, is that Hillary Clinton wanted that presidency and she had been carefully steadily and precisely working toward it for decades.

Which is why she had to be stopped. My feminist friend and I had been watching Hillary Clinton’s rise since she was FLOTUS. We adored her. Not because she is without flaws, but because she is so incredibly smart at working the system, and we wanted a hero who knew how to work it better than a man. Hillary Clinton is not male appropriate. She is hated in the same way Fifty Shades of Grey was hated. There is something powerfully on the nose about women who genuinely refuse to pander to male narratives. Michael Moore suggested Oprah for a good candidate, and while I think Oprah would have been successful against Donald Trump, the reason for that is that she represents a style of “femaleness” that is male approved. Hillary doesn’t. She is hardworking, politically astute, smarter than every man around her and likely to have a hidden agenda. Hillary shamelessly wants to succeed. I adored that she was hated. For me, it was evidence of her potential for subversion. Proof that she was dangerous.

However, when the republicans chose Donald Trump to run against Hillary, I knew in my gut it was over. My boyfriend was horrified and amazed. He kept asking how did it happen, why did it happen, and who could take this man seriously. But I knew. It takes rape and violence to keep a powerful woman down, and they needed to go back to basics to defeat this woman. People argue that Bernie Sanders could have beat Trump, but Bernie Sanders would never have gone up against Trump. Ted Cruz – or anyone else – would have been chosen. The republicans would never have pitted Trump against a respectable male. But they needed a man who knew how to punch a woman in the face till the blood stopped her talking, a man who could deny any accusations against him as irrelevant, and a man who could comfortably lie, cheat and steal his way into the White House. They knew this, because that is how men have always defeated women. Hillary was a master of the system, and they needed to change it out from under her.

Now we are left with this carry-on about middle-America being sick of globalisation (!) but that’s just more leftist pandering to obfuscating narratives. There is nothing new in the rise of Donald Trump. He represents the same old system that has always been beating women till they bleed. He acts like my best friend’s father, the men I work with, the man who raped me, and many of the men in my life that have formed and shaped me. He is my normal, as are the trolls on social media threatening the lives of anyone they disagree with. He certainly doesn’t represent a new system or any sort of change. He represents a long term established old world order that we keep pretending has gone away. If he is impeached or magically becomes a socialist or treads water doing nothing till he is elected out (the anemic leftist’s narrative is suggesting all these things) it won’t matter, because he has done his job. His job was to make sure little girls know they can’t be president of the United States, and he’s achieved that.

But he has done something else. He has taught feminists like me that the battle is not the one I thought. He has taught me patience gets us nothing. He has taught me that every time I relax into a system that hates me, I am complicit. He has taught me that this battle is more essential than I ever dreamed. He has taught me how desperately important it is to him and his followers that I don’t succeed. He has exposed his and other men’s fear of me. He has taught me that it is worth blowing up a political party, a political system, and a history that has served him perfectly just to stop me. He has taught me that every aspect of our system is corrupted by the patriarchal narrative and that all of it strives to keep me powerless.

Thank you Hillary Clinton. You are still my inspiration.

PS

An excellent article from Michelle Goldberg in XXFactor supports my views above with more examples and commentary. Check it out here.

Gloria Steinem: “When you look at the predictors of whether a country will be violent within itself or whether it will be willing to use military violence against another country, the strongest predictor is not poverty, or access to natural resources or religion, or even degree of democracy. It’s violence against females,” Steinem says. Check the full article here.

There are a lot of stories in this one story, and like all historical disasters, no single strand can stand alone to explain it. Trump as a by-product of Hillary is one strand, but remember he was also the by-product of Obama. Misogyny cut across all ethnicities in this election, but the racist backlash is very real and had a large effect , especially in the Midwest, compounding the problems. The election was closely decided, and there are issues of Bernie supporters (misogynist to some extent, plus fantasy idealism to some extent), a genuine anti-Hispanic racism to go along with the more historical variety, industrial transformations that are doing away with factory work in favor not only of globalization but also automation (self-driving trucks and cars are going to hit the heartland like a ton of bricks), and any other number of factors. It’s been a genuine shitstorm but I do think the misogyny aspects would have been much clearer if she had not been directly following on the first black president.

WOW! As usual your writing is powerful and to the point. For nearly 2 years now, I have enjoyed reading your reviews and commentaries. Today I read your take on our elections. So much of what you wrote is spot on and pointedly so, but I wonder if you have given the Republican Party too much credit.
Over here none of us saw it coming, but with re-evaluation it is quite obvious. Thirty years ago Charlotte and I were Republicans (sorry but true). Then our views began to broaden and the affiliation ended. I spent a few decades in media and advertising and one thing we always kept in focus was one must appeal and cater to the lowest common denominator. This is where we (I refer to people like me who are clearly not in the majority) made our blooper. We forgot just how low the American common denominator is. The Trump campaign did not. I think the Republican party was as surprised by the result as the rest of us, but is happy to take the credit.
Giving the “party” credit for genius machinations doe NOT account for the stunning number of women voters who ticked the box for Trump. They alone could have ended this. It also does not give negative credit to the Democratic party whicj did not even try to get their voters out assuming that there was no way for Trump to get in.
Please don’t give marks for machiavellian brilliance to a party that is incapable thinking that deeply.
Keep writing these things. I am completely captivated by your imagery and thought processes. You make me think and I enjoy it.

Hey Kurt – thank you warmly, as always for being such a great reader and supporter. I do appreciate it, and I really like our friendship.
Your words re giving republicans too much credit are well received. I completely understand where you are coming from. I know I said the republicans chose him deliberately – the problem lies in the what I mean by that. I do think it was about Hillary, and I think the repubs had a gut level intuitive response born of the “knowing” that comes from belief and opinion. As soon as I saw DT I recognised him. “Deliberate” actions often come from gut responses that are interpreted differently by our rationalisings. Almost everyone who voted for Trump all the way along didn’t know their neighbor was voting for him too. I don’t believe Trump knew he was going to win – he was talking about rigged elections, and he looked like a beaten man in the days running up. He also looked like a stunned mullet heading to the White House to speak with Obama.
As for the women who voted – I can explain that. Many of those women have been beaten down long ago. I absolutely believe many of them were threatened if they voted for Hillary. It would have happened months ago at a backyard family BBQ, or a committee meeting, or a school function. Women survive by becoming a loud mouthpiece for their husbands political and social beliefs. I have done it myself. In other countries, I’ve known women who doused their daughter-in-law in petrol and set her alight when her dowry ran out, and I’ve met women who have poured salt down their new born baby girls throat rather than present a live girl to their husband. Never underestimate how terrified women are all over the world.
Thanks again for a great comment – and a HUGE thank you for leaving the Republican Party! Bless you and your fine mind!

Hey Tom – thanks for your comment, insights and intellectual engagement. I really appreciate your reading, as always.
I agree with everything you say, but I do think they could have run the race card with another candidate. They always do – we’ve done it in this country. Migrants and ISIS give plenty of fodder for those types of fears, and there were enough Obama perceived failures to rally the troops against him and his legacy. But the woman thing is special and different. That hysterical violence is used on women in the home, and it was an important red flag for females. There is always some distance between the white man and the man of colour; but they each go home and fight their women in their safe territory. Women are more likely to be beaten and raped at home than by a random in the street. We needed to be told that hadn’t gone away, that there was a special place in hell reserved for the woman who went against her man. Donald Trump is a comparatively gentle reminder of those consequences.
Thanks again for your comment and your discussion. You can’t imagine how marvelous it is to talk freely and openly with men on these subjects.

I guess we’re all reacting moment by moment to developments as they occur. My wife and I had been debating for some time just how Hillary’s election would bring even more than the usual misogyny ‘out of the closet’, so to speak, but due to what happened instead we are seeing a massive ex-closet exodus of white supremacists, even where we live in Northern California. Since she lost, the wife-beaters can remain anonymous for now, I suppose, but the Nazis are exposing themselves on street corners and college campuses. It’s a scary time for every non-fascist here, and there’s no telling how long it will last or how far it will extend. I like to think that the younger generation will reject this behavior and make pariahs out of those losers, but it’s dangerous to put too much faith in the young. They tend to be trendy.

In the future we will have women presidents just as we have had women Supreme Court justices and Speakers of the House and Governors and Senators and so on. I’m not a big believer in the “arc of history” being long and bending this way or that, but I do believe, as Macedonio Fernandez once wrote, that no one should ever have to do anything for the first time. Hillary gave us our first major party woman nominee for President and she will always be remembered and honored for that.

Thanks Tom. I’m so sorry you guys are living with what you are right now. I confess the sentiment among liberal minded folk here is anger at the U.S. for doing this, but I can’t pretend Australia is any better. I’m sure the U.S. will vote in a male appropriate female sooner rather than later. She will probably be a Republican. One thing is for sure. I will never again hope that an election, in any country anywhere, will change what happens for women. When politics is able to allow a Hillary Clinton to take control, we will have won the battle elsewhere already.
I am genuinely sorry for what is happening to your country and I hope you and those who think like us will be safe there. I hear what you are saying about race and I hope desperately that none of your non-white folk have to endure this for long. It’s desperate, heartbreaking and a spooky repeat of history. I’m so sorry.

Wow Lisa, you said it. I live in the US, and nobody is saying the things you said. It woke me up. Even after his “grab her by the pussy” comment, nobody was saying what you did (not really). After feeling the force of your words I have to believe that there is a chilling force at work – not overtly, but an unconscience self-editing that scares the hell out of me.